Geek deals: $250 off HP Pavilion performance desktop

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Options can be baffling. Laptop or desktop? 720p or 1080p display? Dual-core or quad-core? Hard drive or SSD? And that’s just the beginning of your spec comparisons. There’s a whole host of upgrades for personalization. Once you succumb to one attractive add-on, you may find yourself falling down the rabbit hole and filling your cart with additional drives, add-in cards, and peripherals that you don’t really need.

That’s the beauty of a quickship item. Usually, more thought goes into these ready-made PCs — their pre-set builds can accommodate a wide variety of needs, so you needn’t mull over the importance of every spec decision before checking out. This is the case with our deal on a HP Pavilion HPE quick-ship item available today.

Only $699 nets you this HP Pavilion HPE h8-1228 with a quad-core Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB RAM, a 1.5TB hard drive, and yes, even dedicated graphics that you know you want. There’s also a Blu-ray player/SuperMulti DVD burner and audio that’s capable of exporting 5.1 stereo surround sound. It has inputs to connect to the latest gadgetry, including HDMI, DVI, and DisplayPort (VGA is only available with a dongle).

It’s not gaming PC, per se (even though the red makes it look kind of Alienware-esque), but the Radeon 7570 graphics can still handle the rigors of most of today’s gaming. As you might recall, the HPE was introduced as HP’s top-shelf desktop, put it right below their bottom-of-the-line workstation, the Z200.

All in all, it’s a good deal on a pre-configured desktop with excellent specs. And you won’t pull out your hair in the selection process. Just keep in mind that there is a reason why this deal is being offered… new Ivy Bridge gear from Intel is rumored to be available soon.